US Pharm. 2007;32(9):66.
Fee Cuts Raise Physicians'
Ire
Pharmacists'
professional brethren will finally feel what has been happening to them over
the years. As a result of a projected 9.9% physician fee cut in Medicare Part
B payments in January, the chairman of the AMA Board of Trustees is predicting
that the proposed reimbursement cuts will affect the number of Medicare
patients physicians will treat.
According to Cecil B. Wilson,
MD, chairman of AMA's Board of Trustees, Medicare doctors are receiving the
same payments for their services as in 2001, but the average costs of their
medical practices have risen 18% since then. An AMA survey of nearly 9,000
physicians uncovered that if fees were cut by the projected 40% over the next
nine years, 77% of the physicians polled said they would limit the number of
new Medicare patients, and 68% would limit the number of their established
Medicare patients. Other measures they would take would be to refer out
complex cases, discontinue nursing home visits, discontinue rural outreach
programs, and reduce the size of their staffs.
No Money Headaches
If you think that
having money causes more headaches, think again. According to a multicenter
study published in the journal Neurology, assuming there is no genetic
link, children from families with an annual household income of $90,000 or
more had a 50% lower occurrence rate of migraine headaches compared with
children from households with an annual income less than $22,500. However,
income had no influence on migraines in families with a hereditary
predisposition to the condition.
According to Marcelo Bigal,
MD, of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the results "mandate a search
for environmental risk factors associated with low income which increase the
one-year period prevalence of migraine." The researchers plan to examine
nutrition, emotional and physical stress, and disparities in treatment
patterns as potential contributors to migraine.
Policing Sleep Patterns
Researchers
attending a recent Associated Professional Sleep Societies Meeting reported
that four out of 10 police officers may be working with a variety of sleep
problems, including sleep apnea, insomnia, restless legs syndrome, or
narcolepsy.
Dr. Shantha Rajaratnam, PhD,
of Harvard University surveyed police officers whose average age was 38, 77%
of whom were men. Dr. Rajaratnam concluded that "given the large number of
officers who screened positive for sleep disorders, sleep disorder screening
and treatment programs should be implemented with the aim of improving police
officer health, safety and productivity."
Sniffing Out Alzheimer's
Researchers at Rush
University Medical Center in Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania
uncovered that trouble identifying common odors may be a sign of mild
cognitive impairment. According to Dr. Robert S. Wilson, PhD, and colleagues,
impaired sense of smell was associated with a 15% overall increase in risk for
cognitive impairment.
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